She wants her son to start dating again so he can give her grandchildren.
Welcome to “Asking Eric,” a new daily advice column by R. Eric Thomas, which replaces Amy Dickinson’s “Ask Amy.” You can readMy youngest son had a horrible breakup last year. I still hate her and sob-yelled during an Alanis Morissette concert to “You Oughta Know.” Yes, I sob-yelled in public. Cue shame. And righteousness. Hate is powerful. Said son is adorable, nice, has a great job that he loves, etc. Yet, he won’t date.
Let’s be clear. I need grandchildren from this boy. He’s the best one of the bunch . How do I encourage him to get out there without actually saying those words? Or do I just adopt more cats as my grandchildren?Cats. As I vividly recall from the Morissette-fueled sob-yell periods of my youth, the chorus of “You Oughta Know” includes the line “I’m here to remind you of the mess you left when you went away.
You clearly have a lot of compassion for your son, which is wonderful. But be careful not to slide into codependent tendencies. The breakup may hurt you but it's still his breakup. Tread carefully and keep your comments in the supportive, rather than prescriptive, range. No mom wants to see their child go through heartbreak, but you're not going to help him gain the emotional strength needed to jump back into the dating pool by pressuring him.
It has become such an ingrained part of my life to write every day that I would find it difficult to just stop, but if all of them are destined to end up in a landfill somewhere, I might have to make some hard choices. Incidentally, I’m seriously optimistic that I have at least a couple more decades of diaries left to write, if I do continue.What a beautiful gift you’ve given yourself. Please, don’t stop even if you haven’t found a historian or museum that might want your diaries, yet.
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